After the US, it is the Canadians and British who are eyeing nuclear power deals in India. Officials from the nuclear power industry of
the United Kingdom and Canada will be here from Monday to talks on the subject.
The two teams are being led by high-profile ministers — British secretary of state for business, enterprise and regulatory reform Peter Mandelson and Canadian minister of international Trade Stockwell Day.
The UK, where no new plants have been built in the past two decades despite 20 per cent of the country’s electricity being generated from nuclear power, has changed its policy recently and is planning more plants. Britain needs to import reactors from France, US or Russia.
The British delegation includes officials from the Nuclear Industry Association, the umbrella group for the industry, Rolls Royce Nuclear, Urenco Enrichment Co, Thompson Valves, Weir Power, as well as representatives from allied academic and legal fields. The Canadian delegation includes officials from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, nuclear reactor designers, Cameco Corp which is uranium supplier and SNC-Lavalin Nuclear, a nuclear engineering firm.
India’s cooperation with Canada had ended after the first nuclear test in 1974 when it was accused of taking plutonium from the Cirus reactor that it had got from Canada under the “atoms for peace” programme.
However, New Delhi maintained that this was not true. Canada has supported the Indo-US nuclear deal and helped in passing the India-specific safeguards agreement at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
India’s 30-year nuclear isolation ended with the signing of the India-US nuclear deal and the change in guidelines for trade with India by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
US electronics giant Westinghouse and Indian construction firm Larsen & Toubro signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Friday to set up a joint venture to build nuclear reactors in India. India also plans to award contracts to companies from France and Russia. By 2030, India plans to increase its nuclear capacity 15-fold, to 63,000 megawatts, at an estimated cost of $80 billion.
(Source: The Economic Times of India)
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2 comments:
Naturally, it was just a matter of time, who will make the first step. India's demand for energy is growing and will be growing for many many years more, I think there's definitely no other way, just building nuclear power plants...
Lorne
It cannot have effect as a matter of fact, that's exactly what I suppose.
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